Computer systems, such as, for example, personal computers, which are designed for desktop or under-desk use are typically characterized by a main-board or motherboard housed in a chassis or case. Auxiliary components additionally contained within the chassis or case may include, among others, network adapter circuit boards, modems, specialized adapters, and graphics display adapters. These auxiliary components may receive power through connection to the motherboard or through additional connections directly to a system power supply contained within the chassis or case. Additional components which generate heat, such as hard drives, disk drives, media readers, etc. may further be contained within the chassis or case, and coupled to the system power supply and/or motherboard as needed.
During operation, the motherboard and various auxiliary components consume power and generate heat. To ensure proper functionality of the computer system, it is necessary to regulate the operating temperatures inside the chassis or case. Individual integrated circuits, such as, for example, central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), memory modules, etc. may generate significant amounts of heat during operation. This heat may result in undesirably high temperature at the components or localized hot spots within the chassis. In this disclosure, the term “processors”, are used as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, to describe a wide range of components. These components may include dedicated graphics processing units, microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, and general system processors. In an air-cooled system, the generated heat is absorbed by the ambient air within the chassis, which is then circulated or exchanged by various cooling fans. Failure to maintain adequate temperature control within the chassis, and at individual integrated circuits, can degrade system performance and may eventually lead to component failure.
Traditionally, a cooling fan is used to circulate air within the chassis and to exchange the high temperature internal air with cooler external air. However, as personal computer systems include increasing numbers of individual components, such as, for example, integrated circuits and graphics display adapters, a supply cooling fan may be inadequate to maintain the necessary operating temperatures within the chassis environment.
Specialized liquid cooling systems are available for some components in a personal computer system. Specialized liquid cooling systems typically require a coolant circulation pathway, which routes a thermal transfer liquid between a heat exchanger such as a radiator and a heat source, such as a CPU, GPU, or other electronic component. Specialized liquid cooling systems are well adapted to maintain the operating temperatures of individual components within acceptable limits. However, these specialized liquid cooling systems are not adapted for use with a wide variety of components or adapter boards in a personal computer system. Furthermore, once such liquid cooling systems are installed, often it is difficult to replace, insert, or remove components requiring cooling from the system. To replace or add components, the liquid cooling system must either be drained or breached to facilitate the replacement, insertion, or removal.
Some specialized liquid cooling systems adapted for use with plug-in adapter cards such as graphic cards utilize a cold plate component through which a cooling liquid circulates for cooling the main processor on the adapter card, and thermal radiators for air cooling the other circuit components on the adapter card. These systems often add significant space requirements to the adapter card, necessitating the use of two adapter “slots” or bays. Additionally, by continuing to utilize thermal radiators for air cooling, these systems contribute heat to the internal environment within the computer chassis, increasing the strain on other cooling components.
Personal computers are not the only electronic devices which generate heat during use. Many electronic devices contained within a chassis or a case generates heat during use which must be dissipated. For example, multiple circuit boards, DC/DC converters, hard drives, optical components, rack-mounted servers, blade servers, networking switches and routers, network storage devices, military and medical electronic equipment, game consoles, as well as instrumentation and testing electronics all generate heat during use which must be dissipated to avoid damage to the system. The cooling systems of the current disclosure are applicable to these applications.
It would be advantageous to provide a component for use with a liquid cooling system which may be easily adapted to provide a liquid cooling mechanism for a wide range of heat-generating integrated circuit components, such as a personal computer adapter card, to cool both the adapter card processors as well as associated integrated circuits. It would be further advantageous to provide a component for a liquid cooling system which may be easily detached from an associated heat source without draining of any liquid coolant or breaching of the coolant flow pathways, to enable replacement, addition, or removal of electronic components such as processors, and which does not significantly increase the space requirements of the adapter card.